Ethiopia's One WASH National Programme

Urban WASH

Ethiopia is predominantly a rural country with only 18% of the total population currently residing in urban areas. However, recent trends in urban population growth show how this figure is rapidly changing. It is estimated that the urban population will be 30% of the total by the year 2040 (Figure 6.7).

Figure 6.7 Changing proportion of urban and rural population in Ethiopia from 1950 to 2050 (estimated from 2014 onwards). (UNDESA, 2014)

The urban water supply component of the OWNP provides selected towns with technical assistance through grants and/or loans to improve their water supply service. Towns are classified according to their water supply provision and management status into three categories, as shown in Table 6.1. All three categories are supported by the urban WASH programme through various levels of interventions based on need assessment (FDRE, 2013c). Support may also include liquid waste management linked to sanitation and hygiene promotion.

Table 6.1 Categories of town for the OWNP urban water supply component. (OWNP, 2013)

1

Towns/cities having utilities managed by a Water Board

2

Towns/cities having utilities but not managed by a Water Board

3

Small towns with water supply systems managed by WASHCOs or towns without a water supply system at all

Town Water Boards are committees of representatives from all the WASH sector offices (water, health, education) and from communities and other user groups.

The Board is responsible for monitoring and evaluation of the overall performance of the water supply system. The board is directly accountable to the town (or woreda or city) council or administration. Utilities or water utilities are organisations entrusted with the task of providing water supplyservice to their respective towns in a timely, cost- and quality-conscious manner. They may also be called Town Water Supply Enterprises, or Town Water Supply and Sewerage Enterprises in locations where there is, or will be, a sewer network. Water utilities are accountable to the Town Water Board.

An important difference between rural and urban is that full cost recovery is applied for urban water supply. Full cost recovery means that the water supply service is able to recover the cost of operation and maintenance of the water supply system as well as the cost of investment, Investment costs include, but are not limited to, costs for water source development, treatment, installation of distribution systems, electro-mechanical materials, installation of pumping stations, construction of office and auxiliary buildings etc.